Real-time memoir of the coming year (5/20/14 – 15) and the achievement of a life-long dream

Awake* — A Little Old but Never Tired

I’d be more warm and content in bed, spooning with my friend.
This scene’s familiar, same time … and same channel again:
I’ve left the arms and warmth for the company of my pen.

It feels different from the time before — this time I think I’m OK. For a change, it’s not deprivation that’s got me up and awake, Though I know I’m no good and happy’s not my forte. And I haven’t felt like this in so long, I’d like to think … , but I hate to say:

You don’t want it tomorrow, if you’ve got it today.
Tomorrow never happens anyway — that’s what it is.

If you know me at all, you know I’m at home and at ease with my pain,
These exciting giddy moments, well, they’re hell to explain.
And I know that at any second the whole situation might up and change.
Are you telling me loves songs are only good after love’s estranged?

In the morning, he might leave for good without a goodbye.
And when heartache rears her ugly head, well I’ll look her in the eye,
And I’ll kiss her on the mouth. You know I’ll hold my head up high,
Bless her outweighed pain this time and I’m proud that she did not pass me by.

You don’t want it tomorrow, if you’ve got it today.
Tomorrow never happens anyway — that’s what it is, that’s what it is, that’s what it is.

If these words (*so dear to my heart, but which I’m not 100% sure about) do anything for you, check out the singer-songwriter behind them: Benjamin Smoke, of Cabbagetown in Atlanta, Georgia. This video for the song features footage from the exquisite documentary (directed by Peter Sillen and Jem Cohen), covering ten years of Smoke’s various incarnations and a remarkable life cut short by disease and addiction.

Cannot recommend the (whole) film enough. If you come away from it feeling sad (or worse), sorry, but I’d say you’ve missed the marvel and miracle that were this man’s talent, spirit, and character. The main thing I came away with was AWE for his lack of bitterness, especially given his situation, and sheer adoration for his music and his astonishing capacity for looking heartache (and himself and life and all of it) “in the eye” and being willing and able to share what he saw so beautifully and powerfully.

Also, and I always come back to this: even though beautiful ideas are … beautiful, a million of them don’t come close to: even one beautiful thing DONE/completed and dispatched to wherever it needs to go to best keep doing, or even one (non-harmful) deed whose aim is beauty, truth, good — or even any of those plain, mundane, easy-to-miss steps (or mis-steps) and choices that make such accomplishments possible.

Here, here for the Doers! (And for me, having realized that being busy-busy-busy-BUSY doesn’t make me one of them.) Slowly but pretty surely, I am joining you.

5 thoughts on “Awake* — A Little Old but Never Tired”

Ha Ha. When I started to read the poem, I thought it was yours at first, and I said, ³Tom and Becky have an EXPRESSO machine??²

On 12/11/14 11:04 PM, “Lourdes Mint’s Mid-Life Miracle” wrote:

> Lourdes Mint posted: “One finds me in the kitchen with cheese toast and > eXspresso blend. I’d be more warm and content in bed, spooning with my > friend. This scene’s familiar, same time … and same channel again: I’ve > left the arms and warmth for the company of my p” >